Visions and Revisions

Medium: Resist-ground etching, engraving
Dimensions: 25 x 40 inches
Signature: Signed
Artist details: American, 1930
Date finished: 2001
Edition: of 140

Recommended by Suzannah (Marketing and Communications Manager):

“Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.” - The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot

"Peter Milton’s prints share many qualities with the poetry of T.S. Eliot: the grand scale, ghostly vignettes, shifting perspectives, and liminal worlds, as well as a penchant for subtle references to cats in their art. ‘Visions and Revisions’, the title of which is taken from a line in “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock”, portrays a party that appears to be in full swing with many figures dancing and socializing. However something in the scene is fractured; the figures are spread far apart, some fading into nothingness, and many staring directly out of the paper at you, the viewer. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” tells a story from the perspective of a shy and anxious man who is contemplating attending a party and all the dooms and horrors that will befall him there. I imagine that the viewer is Prufrock, all at once subjected to“the eternal Footman” who holds your hat and coat, among the people “who come and go/talking of Michelangelo,” all while being observed by the woman who is misunderstood and misunderstands you, saying “that is not what I meant at all.” Both the poem and this print convey a powerful sense of disorientation in the midst of frivolity. This print is a haunting and faithful translation of a touchstone modernist poem from verse into visual art."